Born in Syracuse, New York, Edward Chester Babcock began writing music while in high school. He renamed himself to Jimmy Van Heusen at age 16, after the shirt makers Phillips-Van Heusen, to use as his on-air name during local shows. His close friends called him "Chet".[3] Jimmy was raised Methodist.[4]
Studying at Cazenovia Seminary and Syracuse University, he became friends with Jerry Arlen, the younger brother of Harold Arlen. With the elder Arlen's help, Van Heusen wrote songs for the Cotton Club revue, including "Harlem Hospitality". He then became a staff pianist for some of the Tin Pan Alley publishers, and wrote "It's the Dreamer in Me" (1938) with lyrics by Jimmy Dorsey. Collaborating with lyricist Eddie DeLange, on songs such as "Heaven Can Wait", "So Help Me", and "Darn That Dream", his work became more prolific, writing over 60 songs in 1940 alone. It was in 1940 that he teamed up with the lyricist Johnny Burke. Burke and Van Heusen moved to Hollywood and wrote for stage musicals and films throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Swinging on a Star" (1944). Their songs were featured in many Bing Crosby films of the era, including some of the Road installments and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949).
He also was a pilot of some accomplishment; he met Joe Hornsby, who worked for the FAA in Los Angeles CA (Hornsby was the son of Dan Hornsby and the father of Nikki Hornsby), because of his music career with his interest in flying. Joe Hornsby sponsored Jimmy into an exclusive pilots club called the Quiet Birdmen which held meetings at Proud Bird restaurant at LAX; this friendship endured until Hornsby and his wife Dorothea died in short succession the late 1970s. He remained close friend with Nikki Hornsby until his own death. Using his birth name, Van Heusen also worked as a part-time test pilot for Lockheed Corporation during World War II.
Van Heusen wrote the music for five Broadwaymusicals: Swingin' the Dream (1939); Nellie Bly (1946), Carnival in Flanders (1953), Skyscraper (1965), and Walking Happy (1966). While Van Heusen did not achieve nearly the success on Broadway that he did in Hollywood, at least two songs from Van Heusen musicals can legitimately be considered standards:[3] "Darn That Dream" from Swingin' the Dream; "Here's That Rainy Day" from Carnival in Flanders.
Van Heusen composed over 1000 songs of which 50 songs became standards. Van Heusen songs are featured in over five hundred and eighty films.
Personal life
Van Heusen was known to be quite popular among women. James Kaplan in his book Frank: The Voice (2010) wrote, "He played piano beautifully, wrote gorgeously poignant songs about romance...he had a fat wallet, he flew his own plane; he never went home alone." Van Heusen was once described by Angie Dickinson, "You would not pick him over Clark Gable any day, but his magnetism was irresistible."[6] In his 20s he began to shave his head when he started losing his hair, a practice ahead of its time. He once said "I would rather write songs than do anything else – even fly." Kaplan also reported that he was a "hypochondriac of the first order" who kept a Merck manual at his bedside, injected himself with vitamins and painkillers, and had surgical procedures for ailments real and imagined.[6]
I took song writing seriously when I discovered girls.[7]
It was Van Heusen who rushed Sinatra to the hospital after Sinatra, in despair over the breakup of his marriage to Ava Gardner, slashed one of his wrists in a suicide attempt in November 1953.[8] However, this event was never mentioned by Van Heusen in any radio or print interviews given by him. Van Heusen himself married for the first time in 1969, at age 56, to Bobbe Brock, originally one of the Brox Sisters and widow of the late producer Bill Perlberg.
Van Heusen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song 14 times in 12 different years (in both 1945 and 1964 he was nominated for two songs), and won four times: in 1944, 1957, 1959, and 1963.[2]
^ abCoppula, C. (2014). Jimmy Van Heusen: Swinging on a Star. Nashville: Twin Creek Books.
^Jimmy Van Heusen - Vanity Fair
https://www.vanityfair.com › archive-march-2015-jimmy-van-heusen
“Jimmy,” Van Heusen's good friend and occasional lover Angie Dickinson recalls ... Jessica Lange Breaks Down Her Career, from King Kong to American Horror Story .... He had been born in 1913, in Syracuse, New York, to rock-ribbed Methodists ... “Jimmy was a really interesting composer,” says Sammy Cahn's son, jazz ...
^Brooks, Patricia; Brooks, Jonathan (2006). "Chapter 8: East L.A. and the Desert". Laid to Rest in California: a guide to the cemeteries and grave sites of the rich and famous. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press. p. 239. ISBN978-0762741014. OCLC70284362.
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